decouple us, and, you know, this really -- and, again, strategic principles being the same, this is what nato feared when the soviets were able to strike the u.s. homeland. you know, if the chinese get to the point of having a credible conventional strike capability, and that's what the north koreans go for too, but, you know, we'll see, then i think there's a real danger that it becomes this age old question of will the united states risk its own soil to come to the defense of an ally or even in the case of taiwan, a non-ally, obligated under certain conditions on the tra, and i think that given -- if i was chinese, i would want the capability to decouple. i think mark made a strong case of the kinds of capabilities that they are looking to in terms of hitting the homeland. guam is no longer a sanctuary. we'll see if the rest of the u.s. homeland is over the next ten years. >> great. we have a question from the audience members in the overflow auditorium. dan, you get a break. this is for you, ashley from rose chen. she says u.s. past dealings with asia have not been successful like the loss